CHICAGO — Patrick Kane and the Chicago Blackhawks have that look again, and another Stanley Cup is within reach.
Kane scored two goals, goaltender Corey Crawford shook off Wednesday’s erratic performance by stopping 24 shots and the Blackhawks beat the Boston Bruins 3-1 on Saturday night to take a 3-2 lead in the finals.
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Kane had a terrific postseason when Chicago won it all in 2010, including the winning score in a 4-3 overtime victory in Philadelphia that secured the title. Now he’s picking up steam as the Blackhawks move closer to another championship, collecting seven goals in the last seven games.
Dave Bolland added an empty-net score in the closingt seconds and Jonathan Toews had two assists before leaving with an injury. The captain took a big hit in the second period and did not play in the third.
The Bruins also lost one of their key players when Patrice Bergeron was injured in the second. It was unclear what happened to the star center, but the team said he was taken to a hospital for observation.
Game 6 is Monday night in Boston.
With the Blackhawks up 2-0, defenseman Zdeno Chara scored in the third period for Boston, which lost consecutive games for the first time since the first round against Toronto. Tuukka Rask made 29 saves, keeping the Bruins close while they scrambled to generate quality chances.
Chara got a nice pass from David Krejci from behind the net and beat Crawford on the glove side to make it 2-1 at 3:40 in the third period. The whistling slap shot by the big blueliner came after he was on the ice for five of Chicago’s goals in the Blackhawks’ 6-5 overtime victory in Game 4.
The location of Chara’s third postseason goal brought to mind the glove-side difficulties for Crawford in Game 4. But he held up just fine the rest of the way.
He gloved Daniel Paille’s slap shot early in the third, and the Blackhawks helped their embattled goaltender by turning up the pressure on Rask after the Bruins cut it to one. Kane forced Rask to make a couple of nice stops, and Michael Frolik also made a run to the net.
The Blackhawks survived one last push by the Bruins after they pulled Rask, and the crowd of 22,274 roared when the overhead videoboard showed the No. 1 and the Stanley Cup on the screen, signifying the team is one victory away from its fifth title.
Boston and Chicago returned to the ice three days after they played the highest-scoring game in this year’s NHL playoffs. There were five goals in the second period alone, matching the total from the previous two games combined, and Brent Seabrook’s overtime score lifted the Blackhawks to the series-tying victory.
It was a marked departure from the first three games of the finals, and raised questions about what the play would be like in the last part of the series. The answer, at least in Game 5, was a return to the strong team defense and disciplined play. It meant little room to maneuver in both offensive zones, especially for the series’ biggest stars.
Only Kane was sure able to find enough space.
With 2 minutes left in the first, Johnny Oduya’s long slap shot broke the stick of Boston defenseman Dennis Seidenberg and trickled to the left side of the net where Kane poked it in for eighth playoff goal.
The line of Kane, Toews and Bryan Bickell, which Coach Joel Quenneville put back together before Game 4, struck again in the second. Bickell was stopped by Rask on a rush along the left side, but skated behind the net and threw it back in front.
The puck went off the right side of the goal as Rask got his blocker to the post. Kane then deftly backhanded the bouncing puck into the top of the net to make it 2-0 at 5:13.
That proved to be enough for Crawford, who has allowed fewer than two goals in nine games this postseason. But this one had to be particularly satisfying after facing a barrage of questions about his glove over the past few days.
Since the NHL went to a best-of-seven format for the Stanley Cup in 1939, the winner of Game 5 in a deadlocked series has gone on to win the title 15 times in 22 occasions.
Those numbers likely don’t scare Boston very much. The Bruins faced the same situation against Vancouver in 2011 and came back to win the championship.
NOTES: Former Blackhawks G Ed Belfour received a loud ovation and chants of “Ed-die! Ed-die!” when he was shown on the videoboard in the second period. Belfour backstopped the Blackhawks to the 1992 finals, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins. He also played for San Jose, Dallas, Toronto and Florida … Actress Michelle Pfeiffer and her husband David Kelley, a TV writer and producer, attended the game … This series marks the first time Boston and Chicago have met in the playoffs since the Bruins won a semifinal round in 1978.
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